we–i won’t forget–were walking waist-deep in wild grass. “this is what i get,” i was complaining, “for coming with you, cutting class.” (before this day i thought all fields were filled with ticks.) when i caught up to where she crouched, she was lashing together two sticks, tied with slender blades into a slant-armed cross. she propped it up under the shadow of a rock, wedged between striated stone and a patch of softly mottled moss.
“your quarters are off-kilter.” i reached out to correct; she slapped my wrist without looking. she opened the pouch that hung from her neck, pulled out the boneshards she used for prying and eying and hooking. she tucked one into the knot, put the other in her mouth. she was facing south. she raised her left hand and a breeze began to stir. she lowered her right and the sun beat harder on her.
i perched up on the rock and peered down; she’d settled into a knitter’s kneel. “it’s getting dry,” i warned, but she kept rasping her ritewords and rocking knee-to-heel. her mouth was darker than a cave’s, and wider than its shallow sound would make me guess. “listen,” i said, “you keep this up and there’s going to be a real mess.”
that was when i saw them, tiny spots and–at first–scattered, on her ankles and wrists, then all across her thighs and in the twists of her small, pointed ears. she didn’t move, though–too far gone for furies, now, or fears. i’d thought all fields were full, but that was over-reaching; it’s only when the water’s lost those lurkers come a-leeching. “oh, what the hell,” i muttered, “who am i to let a good meal go to waste?” i brushed the tricky little ixodes from her neck and took my share of her taste.
her mouth went slack; the shard fell out and clattered across the stone, as we pulled out every drop of moisture, from beneath the skin to deep within the bones. when we’d all finished feeding, i reached down and turned her slantcross otherwise-round. within an hour the rain fell in rivers, and her dust turned to mud and seeped into the gratefulfilled ground.